Pokemon Go to bovine laptops: no bull
This model where everyone has free low-level access but you have to pay for higher levels of access is today used by businesses as diverse as LinkedIn, Spotify and FindSomeone.
Living down a twisty country road I’ve become both paranoid and pragmatic about what could be around the corner.
Hiding just past the bend there could be sheep on the road, a couple of of horse riders on the verge or a dirty great John Deere tractor – all of which demand your full attention. So I like to think I’m ready for anything.
What I wasn’t ready for this week was two twenty-somethings appearing to flick their iPhones at thin air alongside a paddock of confused cattle beasts.
Turns out what they were doing was throwing Pokeballs at Pokespawn.
Pokemon Go launched just a couple of weeks ago but already it’s reached almost hysterical levels of addicted participation.
Pokemon Go uses iOS and Android phones to send people on a ‘‘real life’’ expedition to catch Pokemon characters.
It combines virtual reality technology, the frictionless distribution of the web and big data to suck people into an augmented reality world.
Did I mention it’s addictive? It’s so addictive that not only has the New Zealand Police issued a warning about entering private property, the Accident Compensation Corporation has reported receiving a regular stream of claims for injuries after tripping and falling while playing the game.
The game is being hailed as the ultimate get-kids-off-their-butt game because unlike traditional games, where you sit glued to your device, Pokemon Go requires players to cover big distances in order to proceed. Some players have tracked themselves moving 10 or 15 kilometres a day.
Pokemon has a few qualities that, combined, make it unique around MMOGs(massive multiplayer online games).
First, it joins all players instantly in a single, organic and live database.
Everyone has ‘‘always on’’ access to the same data and everyone’s actions impact on everyone else – kind of like the real world. Bit of a worry really.
Second, its location-based functionality harvests years and years of data collection from the likes of Google Earth and Google Maps. Its owner – Niantic – is in fact a Google spinout company, so it has a very privileged whakapapa. A whakapapa which means this game has got more data behind it than some governments.
Third, its augmented reality uses the advanced computing power of modern mobile phones to converge manufactured and real environments without breaking a sweat. This unique overlay of digital reality with physical reality is a real game-changer.
Less unique, but still hellishly impressive, is that it has been profitable since day one.
Currently it’s bringing in about $2 million a day, mainly through in-app purchases.
But it’s just the tip of the monetisation iceberg. In the Pokemon Go manufactured world, the potential to sponsor parts of that world is unlimited.
Apart from making sure you don’t drive over players, the key question for me is what are the implications for commerce? How will this game change the way business meets the needs of consumers?
Before you laugh, consider the precedents. The oldies out there will remember Pong, a low-tech version of ping pong where you rolled a knob to control your bat.
That same technology ended up evolving into the mouse that you use every day, a ground-breaking approach to user interface that we now take for granted.
Long after Pong, came Tetris. The falling brick game first popularised handheld gaming, creating a world where every kid aspired to have a game they could carry around with them.
Fast forward another decade and the likes of Runescape and Neopets helped birth the idea of free-to-play games with a freemium commercial overlay.
This model where everyone has free low-level access but you have to pay for higher levels of access is today used by businesses as diverse as LinkedIn, Spotify and FindSomeone. Freemium today is one of the dominant commerce models on the internet.
Applying this lens to Pokemon Go right now it seems to me that the augmented reality is a major but interim step.
Virtual reality has been around for 20 years now and it’s effectively just a shut-off digital reality. You can have someone join you, but you’re trapped in a digital box.
Augmented reality – which Pokemon Go harnesses – is a massive step forward because it sandwiches digital content onto the real world. Imagine a world where you looked through your phone and got all the information that’s currently stored in Google, cross-referenced with your location, velocity and trajectory.
The next step is mixed reality, a world where digital contact interacts with the real world. And it’s not that far away.
Microsoft’s Hollow Lens and Google/Alibaba-backed Magic Leap are the first steps into mixed reality and the experience is astounding. Magic Leap has developed a digital light-fuelled signal that allows computergenerated images to be fully integrated into real world environments.
This means that mixed reality could replace hardware. Suddenly computers don’t need screens or keyboards – they are simply computing in thin air.
So rather than scaring the cattle, in a few years’ time when I drive around a corner I could come across those twenty-somethings and discover that they are actually using the beasts as bovine laptops. No bull.